Dog Days Bassin'
September 21, 2009
It might get pretty hot where you are, but you probably can’t beat the lakes of central Arizona in the summer. Temperatures in the shade creep up past 115 degrees, and there isn’t a creature around that is crazy enough to stand out in the blazing sun for hours on end in the middle of the afternoon – except a bass fisherman, of course.
Gary Senft is the Captain of the State Nitro Team and one of the most popular seminar pros at the Bass Pro Shop in Mesa, Arizona. He’s definitely not all talk –he’s had two tournament wins this summer, two fourth place finishes, two fifths, and a ninth. Because of the heat, those tournaments all take place at night. On weekdays his job starts early in the day, so afternoons usually find him at the lake despite the oppressive Arizona heat.
Water temperatures are in the 80’s when the days are this hot and conventional wisdom is to go deep in these conditions. Senft only goes deep if he has to. Most of the time he can find a reaction bite shallow even when the sun is high.
Not Necessarily Deep
“The fish do use the deeper, cooler water in summer,” says Senft, “but they also come up out of the deep onto ledges and chase shad around.” It isn’t unusual to find fish coming up from thirty feet to three feet when they are on the hunt. There is no one way Senft uses to locate these fish. He keeps his eye on a variety of things, including his depthfinder, birds and the surface of the water.
Senft has the big new Lowrance HDS7, which is an absolutely gorgeous unit. The colors and the hi-def make everything easy to see and identify, especially with that 7-inch screen. He glances at it constantly, watching for bottom changes, structure, balls of baitfish and bass, and he keeps a variety of lures tied on.
Since he spends so much time on the water he knows the location of ledges next to deep water. These are also easy to spot on a good lake map. With the HDS7 you can get maps of many lakes right in the unit, and the detail is incredible. It’s always a good idea to have several of these areas in mind in case the fish aren’t biting on your favorite spot. I gotta tell you, though – if Senft has been getting fish on a spot, he toughs it out. He’ll spend over an hour on a good ledge even if he isn’t getting bit. Once the fish turn on it makes the wait worthwhile.
At Bartlett Lake northeast of Phoenix, Senfts’ first stop is a big flat on a main point about halfway up the lake. Bartlett is an impoundment on the Verde River and it is a long, rather narrow lake once you get away from the main basin down by the dam. The flat he chooses wraps clear around the point where a big side wash forms a cove off the main channel. The coves are formed by dry washes – creeks that only run after a rain. Bartlett is surrounded by mountains and cliffs, so most of the cover and structure you fish there is rock.
Variety Produces
When he first pulls up Senft shuts the big motor down before he reaches the flat and lets momentum carry him to where he wants to fish. It doesn’t take much to spook shallow fish and he doesn’t take any chances. The first bait he picks up is Vixen. “A topwater bait covers water quicker than almost anything else because the fish can see it and hear it from such a distance,” he says. If there are two people in the boat, they should be trying different baits to double their chances of finding out what the fish want. Chatterbaits, crankbaits and spinnerbaits are good choices, but Senft’s second pick after the Vixen is a drop-shot rig.
“Usually, if the fish will take a topwater lure you’ll get some hints,” says Senft. “You’ll see herons right by the water grabbing shad or you’ll see or hear boils. Not always, though. Sometimes it’s just dead calm and quiet and the topwater bite will wear your arm out.”
The bites seem to go in waves. If he doesn’t get bit in twenty minutes or so, Senft switches to his drop-shot rig. A 10-inch leader seems to do the trick most of the time. He throws it out and lets it hit bottom, then just drifts without twitching it. He’ll check out everything from three feet to twenty feet, watching the graph and listening for surface action.
When the bass start chasing shad the commotion is unmistakable. The splashing can be heard for quite a distance and you’ll see shad leaping out of the water trying to get away. When this happens, Senft immediately casts a Vixen out past the boil. He doesn’t bother to work it all the way back to the boat – once he’s past the activity he cranks it in quickly and re-casts. Often the fish chasing shad over deeper water are schooling bass and every one that you catch will look like a clone of the last one you caught.
With the drop shot the bite is most often a rubber-band bite; they take it and just hold on, so when you go to move the bait it feels heavy or squishy. Most often the shallower the fish, the more aggressive they are. If he isn’t getting bit even with the drop shot, Senft doesn’t always give up and move. If the area he’s fishing has been producing well for days, he just shifts gears and makes some small changes.
One of his favorite rigs for reluctant biters is a drop shot with an 18-inch leader. He uses a quarter-ounce weight and a small Senko and when the weight hits the bottom he gives the rig some slack so the Senko can do its shimmy for a bit before it hits bottom. He has had some absolutely insane luck with that even when everyone else is complaining about how “dead” it is.
Odds and Ends
I’m sure you’ve heard tons of little bass fishing proverbs like “bananas are bad luck on a boat”, etc. I’ve heard that it’s good luck if a dragonfly lands on your rod and bad luck to catch a fish on the first cast (I believe that one!). But Senft told me one I hadn’t heard before: It’s good luck if a fish poops on your boat. Who knew?
Gary has been paying close attention to the lunar charts and correlating them to his fishing success. He’s been doing this for quite some time now and is convinced that the lunar tables are surprisingly accurate. This will come as no surprise to any angler who deals with tides – the moon has an equal if not equally visible effect on fish no matter if they are in oceans, rivers or lakes.
If you do look up lunar charts make sure you make the necessary calculations for your longitude. If you don’t, you’ll be looking for the good bite at the wrong time and you’ll be convinced it’s a bunch of hooey. Here are some sites to check for solunar tables: www.solunarforecast.com and www.primetimes2.com. You’re probably not going to find any for free unless they are generic and those just won’t work. The moon is on a 25-hour schedule (or thereabouts), and the effect moves as it does. So you really do need charts that are specific to where you are fishing. You can also buy fishing watches, but if you fish a lot of different lakes that are far apart, you’ll have to change the parameters every time you fish a different lake.
Equipment
Gary is a regular guy. He’ll spend big bucks on a great plug, but he likes to save where he can. Sure Bass Pro sponsors him, but that doesn’t change the fact that their line is really reasonably priced and works great. You don’t place as well in tournaments as Gary does using inferior equipment.
He recommends Bass Pro XL – it’s just under nine bucks for 1500 yards and it hasn’t let him down yet. (BTW, this trip was my first ride in the new Z8 Nitro and it’s a honey. The ride was smooth as silk and that baby can move.)